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Blue Ridge Parkway rape case in Asheville still unsolved

The suspect sought in a rape in the Craggy Gardens area of the Blue Ridge Parkway on May 12, 2016 is described as a white male about 50 years old, with salt and pepper hair believed to have partially grown-in facial hair. He was believed to have been wearing a light or faded gray short sleeve
T-shirt, baggy blue pants and dark tennis shoes at the time.(Photo: Courtesy of National Park Service)

ASHEVILLE— A rape in the Craggy Gardens area of the Blue Ridge Parkway nearly two years ago remains unsolved.

National Park Service investigators say they have exhausted leads in the May 12, 2016, assault near the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, but they welcome any new information that could help identify a suspect.

Reems Creek firefighters responding to a 911 call found the victim, a 64-year-old woman, tied to a tree near Potato Field Gap about 4 miles west of the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center, where she had gone hiking with her service dog.

A friend of the woman made the call after getting text messages about her changing hiking plans but then receiving an emergency message.

The hiker was treated and released that same evening at Mission Hospital.

The attack at the popular hiking and sightseeing area about 20 miles north of Asheville was originally reported by the Park Service as a “possible assault” and "isolated incident."

Eleven days later the Park Service released a composite sketch of the suspect and description of the man as generally unkempt, about 50 years old with salt-and-pepper hair, partially grown-in facial hair and a musty odor from having gone unwashed. He was possibly wearing a light-colored or faded gray short-sleeve T-shirt, baggy blue pants that appear old and faded, and dark tennis shoes.

The Park Service confirmed on June 1 that it was a sexual assault. The agency received criticism on social media for the weeks-long delay in releasing information to the public.

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The Craggy Gardens Trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway Friday. A woman was sexually assaulted not far from the trail in May 2016.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-)

Kirby Styles, special agent for the National Park Service, based in Cherokee, said the rape was the only one he knows of in the Asheville area of the Blue Ridge Parkway in his 12 years with the agency, or before his time.

By contrast, the city of Asheville reported 48 rapes in both 2016 and 2017, and two so far this year. The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office has reported 19 rapes in 2016, 20 in 2017 and two in 2018.

The Craggy Gardens suspect sketch netted more than 100 leads, none of which led to an arrest, Styles said.

“The sketch did not have a lot of significant features other than a 50-ish white guy,” Styles said. “Everything that was credible we ran into the ground.”

Styles said at the time of the assault the National Park Service worked with all local law enforcement agencies including Asheville police and the sheriff’s office as well as the State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI.

DNA evidence was collected and submitted to the FBI, he said.

“The trace evidence collected is not associated with anyone already in the system,” Styles said.

He performs quarterly reviews of open cases such as the Craggy Gardens assault, reaching out to local agencies to see if anything new has happened relating to the case, Styles said.

A “homeless gentleman in the Asheville area that generated a lot of interest in social media was arrested on an outstanding warrant” shortly after the attack, but he was found to have no connection to the case, Styles said.

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Dave Matthews, of Connecticut, looks at a bulletin board with his daughter, Kelsey, at the Craggy Gardens Visitor Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2016. Posted on the board is a sketch of a man suspected in sexually assaulting a hiker not far from the Craggy Gardens trail.(Photo: Angela Wilhelm/awilhelm@citizen-)

Parkway Chief Ranger Neal Labrie, who oversees law enforcement operations on the parkway, said fliers with the suspect sketch posted at visitor centers have long been removed because he said historically there is no “investigative benefit” to posting wanted pictures at visitor centers with a largely transient population.

The Blue Ridge Parkway passes through Asheville in its 469-mile path from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee.

It manages 83,000 acres of rural and forested territory but adjoins millions more acres of public land in the Smokies, state parks and the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests.

The parkway had more than 16 million visitors in 2017.

The Mountains-to-Sea Trail stretches about 1,100 miles from the Smokies to the Carolina Coast. Both the parkway and the MST draw hikers and backpackers on day-and long-distance hikes. It is not known if the Craggy Gardens attacker had a backpack.

Labrie said he encourages people to take preventive measures when out in the woods, including hiking with a buddy, carrying a phone and letting someone know your planned travel route and expected return time.

While crimes of this magnitude are rare, “bad things can happen in pretty places,” Labrie said. Before the 2016 rape there had not been a major assault on the parkway for five years. Then on Sept. 9, 2016, Seth Pickering, 36, of Leicester, was arrested on the parkway near Brevard Road and charged with stabbing his 7-year-old daughter to death.

“The whole reason we’re out there is we know the parkway is not safe every day. We know those risks are out there and we’re trying to prevent those risks from becoming reality,” Labrie said.

In another high-profile park case, a woman was raped after being stabbed and bound while hiking alone on June 8, 2012, on the Gatlinburg Trail in the Smokies.

After the attacker left, the woman managed to crawl to the road and get help.

Styles worked that case. He said William Earl Seevers, 48, was arrested 18 months later for shoplifting at a convenience store in Alabama. He was found to have been driving a truck he stole in Ohio. Inside the truck was the knife he had used in the Smokies attack.

Seevers was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for attempted murder and aggravated sexual abuse by force.

Labrie said he believes the parkway case will also be solved from within the criminal system.

“Something else is going to happen somewhere that says that guy just got locked up in Alabama or Texas is a potential match up to the evidence we have,” he said.

A rape that occurred in the Nantahala National Forest on Sept. 25, 2011, also remains unsolved, and Forest Service authorities were also widely criticized for the slow release of identifying information on the assailant.

In that case, a woman driving on Forest Service Road 711 in the Wayah Bald area of the forest in Macon County stopped to help a man she saw lying beside the road and thought to be injured. The attacker used a firearm to subdue the victim before assaulting her.

The Forest Service did not release a suspect sketch and description for five days. He was described as white with brown and wavy short hair, green or blue eyes and a fair complexion, about 6 feet tall and 200 pounds with a deep voice. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a medium-blue shirt.

Forest Service spokeswoman Cathy Dowd said it is still an open case but they never developed a person of interest.

Caitlin Worth, parkway executive assistant and avid hiker, said she discourages people from hiking alone.

“Women, especially, should take those considerations at hand even though they want to be at peace and do the things they love in the places they love,” she said. “It’s responsible recreation to consider all the possibilities of things that can happen.”

Have a tip?

Any person with information into the Craggy Gardens sexual assault investigation should call the NPS investigative tip line at 888-653-0009.

Anyone with information about the Wayah Bald area rape should call the Forest Service at 828-231-0288, the Macon County Sheriff's Office at 524-2811 or the State Bureau of Investigation at 800-334-3000.